21 



having been taken up for the purpose of prospecting the measures. 

 A full report was subsequently made by the Government 

 fxeologist, Mr. C. S. Wilkinson,* in which he gives the following 

 general section : — 



Hawkesbury Sandstone and conglomerates ... 300ft. 



Marine beds, conglomerate, sandstone and shales.. 200ft. 



Coal Measures, bituminous shales, sandstones, 



coals, and kerosene shale ... ... ... 120ft. 



620ft. 



He mentions three coal seams, two of which only came under 

 our notice. The lowest, including its bituminous and shaly 

 partings, is sixteen feet thick ; fifty feet above this are Nos. 2 

 and 3, which we saw. The immediate coal-bearing measures 

 seemed to me to be about lifty feet thick above these seams at 

 the point where we struck them, the uppermost or No. 3 being 

 three feet, and the lower or No. 2 about two feet in thickness, 

 separated by a few feet of strata. The fifty foet of measures 

 above are generally seamed with thin irregular bands of coal of 

 no workable value. The kerosene shale is poor in quality. The 

 measures are very flat, not dipping at a greater angle than 

 4" to 6° in a south-westerly direction. 



Mr. Wilkinson remarks that the upper part of No. 1, or the 

 lowest seam, which contains four feet nine inches of workable coal, 

 will yield after due allowance for loss and waste in getting, at 

 the rate of 3,778 tons of large coal, and 1,259 tons of small coal 

 per acre. 



In the present condition of the country the working of these 

 seams is hopeless, the simplest method would probably be by 

 sinking from a convenient spot on the Hawkesbury plateau above. 

 Mr. Wilkinson states that to the westward the Coal Measures do 

 not extend beyond Narriga, where the Siluro-Devonian gold- 

 bearing formation rises to the surface. So far as our rajiid 

 movements would allow me to judge, the area to the westward 

 of the Clyde River occupied by this formation must be much 

 curtailed. So far no indications presented themselves of an 

 outcrop of Coal Measures during the ascent of Mt. Bulee, and the 

 probability is that in this direction they have thinned out. The 

 presence of the kerosene shale enables the position of these beds 

 to be ascertained with tolerable accuracy. The r'esearches of the 

 Geological Survey Oificers appear now to have placed it beyond 

 a doubt, that the Lower Coal Measures at Greta, Port Stephens, 

 Hartley, Joadja Creek, and other places, are always accompanied 

 by bands of this mineral. The presence of the latter in the Clyde 

 section will therefore support the reference of the coal-bearing 

 beds exposed there to the Lower Coal Measures likewise, in 



* Auu. Report Dep. Mines, N.S. Wales^ for 1885 (1886), pp. 131-3. 



